2 Found Guilty in Mich. Terror Cell Case

DAVID RUNK

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, June 2, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Two Arab immigrants accused of gathering intelligence on potential targets from Disneyland to an air base in Turkey were convicted of conspiring to support Islamic terrorists Tuesday, the first guilty verdicts involving a "sleeper cell" uncovered after Sept. 11.

A third man was found guilty only on a fraud charge, and a fourth was acquitted of all counts.

"Today's verdict represents an important victory in the ongoing war against terrorism," U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins said. "Convicting two members of a terrorist sleeping cell, whose core aim is to avoid detection, is a daunting but crucial task for federal prosecutors."

The case began six days after Sept. 11 with a raid on a Detroit apartment that turned up videotape and sketches of what investigators said were potential terrorist targets, including Las Vegas and Disneyland.

The four Arab men, prosecutors alleged, worked as a sleeper cell that was part of a shadowy unidentified Muslim terrorist group. Prosecutors said the men conspired to help terrorists by raising money, producing false documents and gathering information.

Defense attorneys said their clients were victims of overzealous federal agents who relied on the lies of an admitted con man.

"Even in my client's conviction, there is no support for the government's contention," said William Swor, an attorney for Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, the alleged cell leader.

The trial was seen as an important test of the government's ability to root out sleeper cells operating in the United States and stop terrorist attacks in the making.

"Today's convictions sends a clear message: The Department of Justice will work diligently to detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells in the United States and abroad," said Attorney General John Ashcroft, who during the two-month trial was rebuked by the judge for publicly praising a government witness.

Other alleged terror cases prosecuted since Sept. 11, including those of shoe bomber Richard Reid and an alleged sleeper cell in Lackawanna, N.Y., ended in guilty pleas.

The verdicts in the Detroit trial came during the jury's seventh day of deliberations.

Elmardoudi, 37, and Karim Koubriti, 24, were found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. They and Ahmed Hannan, 34, also were convicted of conspiracy to engage in fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents. Hannan was acquitted of conspiracy to support terrorism.

Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 22, was acquitted of all charges. He wept after the jury left the courtroom.

"I'm happy that the verdict was not guilty for me," Ali-Haimoud told reporters outside the courthouse. "I'm not a terrorist"

Elmardoudi could get up to 20 years in prison, Koubriti up to 10, and Hannan as much as five. No sentencing date was set. Their lawyers are expected to appeal.

Ali-Haimoud was released after the verdict, but police later arrested him on an outstanding warrant accusing him of attempting to solicit a prostitute. He posted $250 bond and was released Tuesday evening.

Elmardoudi, who lived in Minneapolis, was arrested in North Carolina in 2002. He was found with a cache of identification documents and $83,000 in cash. The others were arrested in Detroit.

Ali-Haimoud is Algerian and the others are from Morocco. Prosecutors said their plot was hatched before they arrived in the United States in the late 1990s and 2000.

At the heart of the case was material found during the apartment raid on Sept. 17, 2001. Authorities looking for a man on a terrorist watch list said they found fake documents, airport badges, the videotape showing possible U.S. targets, and a day planner holding sketches of a U.S. air base in Turkey and a military hospital in Jordan.

Defense attorneys said that the video, which includes scenes of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, was an innocuous travelogue, and that the day planner once belonged to a now-dead mentally ill man who liked to doodle.

And while two of the men worked as dishwashers for a catering company near the Detroit airport, the defense argued, the badges did not give them access to the airport itself.

The government suggested the men were radical followers of Islam, based in part on audio tapes found in the raid. But during the trial, a defense expert testified the tapes were actually critical of Islamic extremism.

Some legal experts had said a fair trial would be difficult in the aftermath of Sept. 11, but jurors said they put aside thoughts of the attacks and the war on terror.

"We totally separated 9-11, the war on terrorism, all of that, from what we were doing," one juror, whose identity was kept confidential by the court, told reporters Tuesday.